Rita's Aftermath

By a Concerned Cajun
t r u t h o u t Town Hall Meeting Blog Post

Tuesday 27 September 2005

Hi. I'm just a small town girl from the affected area who while informing my online friend about our status and damage was encouraged to post here as she found my story so upsetting. After much thought and careful consideration I'm going to post those comments here minus the personal info. I really feel uncomfortable posting this out for the world to see but it's upsetting me so much that I'm going to take the risk. The lack of details is because I don't want to be identified. I want to remain anonymous for various reasons.

My original but edited post:

The National Guard is a JOKE, they're here riding up and down the roads kicking more waves into the homes, awaiting orders and eating food that should be going to our local rescuers.
When the people ask for help they tell them they cannot do anything until they get orders. A dog was trapped in a kennel and they would not rescue it nor would they even drive people, who wanted to go get him out but didn't have transportation to the dog, a simple 1000 feet into the water. So they had sat there for hours chatting away their afternoon while this dog suffered not to mention there were still people missing in the waters.

I personally watched the Guard trucks ride up and down the road 5 times in less than 2 hours sitting with their guns ready to shoot people mopping out their homes. This is in a small rural community that has a crime rate of almost nothing and mostly that's minor stuff. They are all decent hardworking citizens who are more than likely related to their neighbor - why would we want to harm our family? Our family is not afraid of looters, they're afraid of the National Guard. What kind of world is this that our government feels the need to be hostile to people in need?

Our own local people are in there DOING something all on their own, why should we wait for a government that has proven itself to be slow and sluggish in response? We will protect our own and we don't need people sitting around doing nothing but eating our very scarce food. I don't want to post on a public board what else has happened but needless to say it's quite disturbing and makes me want to tell the National Guard to get out of our parish. The Red Cross and others who are there to genuinely help are more than welcome - we'll give them hugs and welcome them as best we can (hard to do standing in knee deep mud but we'd do our best!) But the National Guard is just inhibiting the efforts of local officials and good Samaritans.

On the good note, our people have proven themselves honorable! This is a quote from a native who just hits the nail on the head about how our people take care of themselves:

New Orleans vs. Vermilion. What was different? N.O. so highly populated. That has to have made rescue more difficult.
We definitely had our advantages here. In my area, almost everyone has a boat and most of us are AVID boatmen. Not as densely populated either. New Orleans is somewhat of an asphalt jungle. Most of it an inner city jungle. They might be street smart but they can’t survive a swamp. And my community jumps instantly to take care of their own. And we're patient. If we stand in line for 3 hours we don’t get grumpy about it. It’s just the way things are when something like this happens. We get that. We understand. You don’t have to worry that someone might steal your stuff. Oh they might steal your stuff on any other day...but not in a disaster. Disaster brings out the best in us. I'll give you my only bag of ice cuz I can drink my water hot but you need it to keep your child’s milk cold. Whoever gets electricity first runs extension cords to their neighbors. And you don’t worry that it gets abused. It’s probably running a fan and a lamp...and anyone can afford to add that to their meter.

And we don’t wait for someone to save us or our neighbors. We get up with dawn and organize it ourselves. Coming from a cluster of small towns where we all know each other, we have more at stake here. The house that gets left behind is someone one of us knows and loves. So no house gets left behind.

Cattle and horses up to their necks in water. No worry. Our people have been through this before. They know what to do. After it’s all over, any livestock relocated to higher ground gets sent back to its proper ranch. That’s what branding is for.

Sometimes I think I want to move away from here because of the hurricanes. But I don’t think I could ever find this kind of people anywhere on earth other than right here. Vermilion Parish is full of the most generous, friendly, brave people I have ever known. Full of courage, full of love for their fellow man.

Check out the KATC website. There's a forum they just added for people of our parish asking for info on their homes. It’s the strangest phenomenon. They all use their first and last names and everyone knows exactly where the other one lives. That's who we are. Real people living real lives, feeling real love for their neighbors.

Nope. I ain’t moving anywhere. I'm already home.

Original post of this is on the discussion forums of KATC.com.

This is so TRUE! All over the parish I've seen friends on the news saving people, horses, dogs and even one guy wading in water up to his armpits holding a donkey's head above water. This was all the VERY FIRST morning before we even realized that the waters were coming up and things like this have continued and still continue. Trucks upon trucks of cattle are being transported and groups of our men on their horses are rounding them up. The sheer numbers of men, real cowboys IMO, that were gathered can in no way belong to the same family/business. Our area doesn't have any outfit that big other than the oil industry and these boys might work for the oil industry but they know their way around the swamps, a horse and a boat.

Anyway, I'm sorry to have said so much but if no one knows what is happening how can we change it?

I still feel this way and some things I haven't mentioned concern me but are unconfirmed and if nothing, I'm not hear to spread gossip, only bring the truth to light.

Link Here